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1.7.1-Doeskin-pantaloons
Brick!Club 1.7.1: Sister Simplice I find Hugo’s attitudes to gender really bizarre. Today, we have: She was a person— we dare not say a woman With Baptistine, we had: there was hardly sufficient body to provide for sex So apparently, when one becomes so virtuous as these two ladies, one transcends one’s gender? I haven’t worked out whether this only applies to women or not. The Bishop, who is incredibly holy, was never explicitly non-gendered. I have an inkling that Enjolras could probably figure into this discussion, but I’ll leave that for now, seeing as we won’t encounter him for many books yet. So is it that Hugo believes one can no longer be so incredibly good and also be womanly? Is gender distracting us from becoming incredibly holy? I’m curious as to what he’s getting at here - or if he’s getting at anything at all. The simplest way to read it is probably just that holiness equals purity and that that means for Baptistine, that Her person seemed made of a shadow or, for Simplice she had never been young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. Basically, they’re neither of them very corporeal, and I guess that what Hugo is saying is that to be holy, you must transcend your earthly form, and in transcending your earthly form, you also transcend your gender. To continue the parallel between Bapstistine and Simplice - because I don’t think you can actually take them separately, when they’re practically the same character - I find it interesting that both of them came with a more ‘peasant’ counterpart: Baptistine has Magloire, and Simplice has Perpetue. Just in case we didn’t notice exactly how ethereally holy they were, Hugo has kindly provided us with contrast. Good man. And of course - as somebody has already mentioned, I believe - we have the (now rather awkward) white-equals-good motif. Simplice gets: Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor…The result not lying was the whiteness which we have mentioned—a whiteness which covered even her lips and her eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. And Baptistine: was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature…a succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of pallor and transparency Hugo is hardly hiding the blatant symbolism from us. In fact, he is directly spelling out a causal connection - in the world of Victor, being good literally lightens your skin tone. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (even in the 1860s) and say that he’s not being racist, and that it’s just the ethereal thing again. The more pale you are, the more ‘transparent’, and thus, the less solidly attatched to this earth. But still, he really should have thought about the implications. Because it’s bloody awkward. We shall have to keep an eye out later for what other traits effect what colours in characters. (Though I just noticed that Magloire is also described as ‘white’, although there’s no connection to any good deeds in her case. But it does make a distinction from Perpetue, who is ‘ruddy’.) Commentary Jealousofthetea What I know about this topic comes from the mid-late middle ages, so it might be kinda outdated, but certainly at that time the idea that saintly women transcend gender was a pretty common one. In fact, because women were inherently sinful and whatever (more so than men), their gender was supposed to be a distraction, so they would have to leave their gender behind if they wanted to be properly holy. As far as I know the idea wasn’t applied to men, certainly not often, because of course men were already great and didn’t need to change… (I’m trying to figure out what this might say about Enjolras, but I’m failing. Possibly because I only just woke up) Sarah1281 Perhaps it is becaused Magloire, while not as saintly and holy as those she lives with, is still a true believer in the bishop and his goodness. She might complain when the bishop goes out courting death or when he invites dangerous criminals to spend the night but it is in private and she passively obeys him when he asks anything of her. Sister Perpetue may be a nun while Magloire is a servant but she’s a nun the way she might have been a washer-woman or a servant herself. It is just a job for her while Magloire is truly devoted to the bishop and Baptistine and makes it possible for the bishop to focus on holy matters and charity since she deals with all the little practical details like keeping them from starving. Pilferingapples On a practical level, being bookish and indoorsy certainly changes your skin color, as opposed to being, you know, outdoorsy and farmworkery/peasantish. Being out of the sun, however intensely, will still not make you transparent, though. More’s the pity; being a shutin would become the road to INVISIBILITY SUPERPOWER were that the case. Given Hugo’s love of Lighting Symbolism And To Heck With How Light Actually Works, is all this whiteness inherent? Like, is he even talking about skin tone? Or is it like an aura, a glowing white field that sort of covers Simplice? I WOULD TOTALLY BELIEVE THAT, Because Hugo. Remember the Bishop and his glowing? Also with you on the MUST NOT DISCUSS ENJOLRAS HERE IN REGARDS TO GENDER ISSUES AUGH why are all my topics four books awaaay but YES I SEE YOU THERE, Doeskin, and I THINK WE AGREE and when we hit the proper section for this discussion WHAT LARKS. Doeskin-pantaloons (reply to Pilferingapples) I am so ready to discuss Enjolras with you yes definitely. In terms of whether the colouring is literal or figurative, I’m in two minds about it. It makes a lot more sense for it to be figurative colouring, but it’s Hugo, and his symbolism has never been exactly subtly, so I wouldn’t put it past him to literally have skin colour equals personality traits. Baptistine and Simplice are both definitely pale-skinned (“Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature” and “Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor”) but on the other hand Simplice has “a whiteness which covered even her lips and her eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white.” That one is clearly symbolic, because radiant eyes and white glance are not a thing that people have just casually with medical cause. So I think it’s both?